Violent behaviour and interpretative bias: an experimental study of the resolution of ambiguity in violent offenders.
The present study used an information-processing approach to investigate differences in interpretation of sentences which were ambiguous for violent or neutral meaning across three groups of subjects: violent offenders, non-violent offender controls and a group of non-offender controls. Subjects were presented with unambiguous and ambiguous sentences. The ambiguous sentences were selected so that they could be interpreted in either a threatening or neutral manner. A recognition memory test indicated that both offender groups were more likely to interpret violent ambiguous sentences in a threatening fashion, with the opposite being shown by the non-offender group. This difference was found to be significant. A control condition suggested that the interpretative bias was specific to violent material and not a general anxiety response. Furthermore, the tendency to infer violent threat was found to correlate with hostility. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive theories of anger and aggression.
Copello
A G
AG
Department of Psychology, St George's Hospital Medical School, London.
Tata
P R
PR
D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D000786:Anger; D003417:Criminal Psychology; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D011329:Prisoners; D011932:Reading; D012938:Social Perception; D014754:Violence